Pandemic: On the Brink

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Pandemic: On the Brink

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Mutation Challenge: adds a fifth (purple) disease that behaves differently than the original four.

Bio-Terrorist Challenge: pits one player against the others!

You may also play with 5 players and play on Legendary level!

Other components include: 12 purple disease cubes, 12 pawns in a smaller size, petri dishes to store your diseases and pawns, a bio-terrorist pad for that player to record his actions.

Note to first edition owners: If your cards are gloss with no linen finish then you have a first printing (Feb-April 2008). Z-man is offering a trade so that your cards will match the newer printings. See www.zmangames.com/boardgames/pandemicOTB.htm for details.

Product Reviews

I'm usually leery of expansions, but my wife and I play Pandemic so
often (100 games +) that trying this expansion wasn't really an option.
It was almost an automatic purchase, with our fingers crossed that it
would add value to the game.

We were very pleasantly surprised. At its heart Pandemic is a puzzle
game, essentially intricate solitaire for bright people. Pandemic On The
Brink succeeds because the puzzle suddenly has a lot more variability to
it.

Start with the addition of six new characters. While we enjoy the
original five characters just fine, there are a fairly limited number of
combinations of those characters you can play. Now that there are
numerous new characters the combinations are far more varied, which
adds replay value to the game. The same applies for the special event
cards. Instead of having five predefined special events players are
treated to more cards, and only some of those cards will be in play
during the game (the rest set aside, unrevealed). This adds to the
variability as well. Both the new characters and the new special events
are well thought out and are fun to play.

There are three new ways to play Pandemic. The two we play the most
often, by a wide margin, are the Mutation and Virulent Strain options.
The Mutation option doesn't seem that much more difficult at first, right
up to the point where you realize that you now have five diseases to
cure rather than four. Since additional cards are added to the draw
deck players will be relieved to know that they at least get a few extra
turns to handle five diseases. The Virulent Strain option makes one of
the four original diseases more difficult to contain and cure without the
benefit of extra cards. The last option is the Bioterrorist, and when we
can get our teenage son to the table he usually opts for that role (as
rebellious teenagers are apt to do). We have enjoyed that variant as
well and probably the only reason we don't play it more is that our son is
more of a video gamer that board gamer.

Here is a variant for couples to consider, it is our standard way to play.
Each player plays two roles, so you essentially play a four player game.
Also, we play with cards revealed. Memorizing what the other player is
holding may be an effective way of teaching cooperation, but frankly it
adds little to the game and we think actually detracts a bit. For purists
who consider this a cheat, well, you can always add an additional
epidemic card to the deck (which we have done occasionally). The
other house rule we use says that whoever is not the active player
cannot make any comments for 30 seconds when the players turn
begins. This discourages veteran players or those who cannot
resist "solving the puzzle" from taking over the game.

Lastly, the addition of the faux Petri dishes to organize the pieces was a
very nice touch. It makes playing the game more enjoyable and setup
and cleanup just a little quicker.

All in all we could not be more pleased with the expansion. Pandemic
and Pandemic On The Brink are a must buy for couples.

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